Good policy, I mostly do the same. If pushed, I will talk in percentages. Most informed people know what the market is, the value to them, and that's all that matters. I refuse to buy a soft drink for $2, but may spend $50 for a nice lunch, when I could eat a sandwich. Don't take that wrong, I eat lots of sandwiches. What $100 is to me, is not the same as $100 to another person.
Myself, with the contacts I have, I would buy the Base model, upgrade the suspension and other things myself, while having the tins done to my liking. Yes, it could be a month longer to ride it, but I would have saved 15% or more and hava the exact bike I want.
Someone I know had liver and kidney transplants, for 2 years on a good day he is able to look out the hospital window. Fairly sure they have little left and they may have sold their home. Would I have judged him for buying a $30k motorcycle 3 years ago - NO.

 

If you like it and can afford it who cares? Buy it... The truth is there's rarely a price on a bike that most of us here will go "good deal"... I know I overpaid for my Ultra and my wife's Trike but it's what we wanted and I suck at negotiating, such is life... But we both got what we wanted and in the end, we're very happy campers as a result. Life's too short to sweat the small stuff... Just my humble opinion.

 

Just out of curiosity, what is a normal level of credit loss for the same period? Bad debt is part of loaning money. That number seems big to me, but there also needs to be something to compare it to, and $0 in losses is not the goal if you're trying to make money loaning money.

 

Asking someone else if the bike is worth the amount their asking, is like asking which chick is the hottest in the bar. If you like it, and can afford it, go for it. If it doesn't turn you on when you sit on it, get off and keep looking. There's an *** for every seat.,,,

 

If you don't buy it someone else will. You can rationalize a purchase many different ways, talk yourself into it and out of it. While you do that, some happy sole will be cruising around turning heads on your bike while you think of what could have been. Make a good solid offer and go from there!

 

Find another dealer.

 

If you had bought a stock black one, would you have paid ~$7 to $8k to add all those things? Keep in mind that the backrest mount is, what, $40 on Amazon and you can install it in 15 minutes with three box wrenches. These dealer addons cover labor, paint, parts cost, all that jazz at a huge markup. For me, if I'm looking at a brand new bike and notice ANY changes, I'm off to the next one. Why would I want to pay all that money just to pad the dealers profit margin on the sale (recall that most dealers these days add several bogus, as in absurdly overpriced, surcharges)?

 

As mentioned earlier, paint is expensive, especially a great paint job. I think it looks great and I would just figure out what that would cost to take that bike apart and do that work to get a sense of the value.

I say get it.

 

interesting question. I did find this on google. I guess if I wanted to I could go digging through a whole bunch of prior Q1 quarterly reports but even though I have the time, I don't have the inclination to do so haha.

article is from 2016 so not exactly up to date but they do show a chart that shows a fairly steady rate of about 3 to 3.5% each year.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/...get-worse.aspx

 

If you want it, just do it! Prices are not dropping…